I had a bet with a friend of mine, which he lost. He's a real pro-liberty type who runs a number of businesses and I was pushing Bitcoin, so naturally I bet him in Bitcoins. The trouble he's having is it's almost impossible to get bitcoins to pay me with! This is a real big problem for the community, since we're all about micro-payments. I'm having trouble avoiding a $15 - $50 bank or Wester Union or Moneygram fee to do a transfer in some reasonable time. Somebody must know a way?

I'm just wondering what the best way to go is? I sent $200 to a very reputable dealer in cash last month and it's supposedly lost in the mail. (I'm not mentioning any names since I keep hoping it will turn up.) So I can't recommend a cash based dealer to the guy.

I was thinking there must be a lower risk way. Like buying a re-loadable visa card with cash, then using that on AlertPay or some other source to buy Liberty Reserve on exchangezone.com. Then using LR to buy BTC on mtgox? That should be less risky than sending cash in the mail. Once you get Liberty Reserve then it's easy to get BTC. It's getting away from the refundable nature of the banking system thats the hard part.

TL:DR:How does he go about getting $10 USD turned into bitcoins without spending $15 on transfer fees? Or is this just impossible?

There are several different types of Bitcoin clients. Hybrid server-assisted clients like Electrum get a lot of their network information from centralized servers, but they also check the server's results using blockchain header data. This is perhaps somewhat more secure than either server-assisted clients or header-only clients.

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I had a bet with a friend of mine, which he lost. He's a real pro-liberty type who runs a number of businesses and I was pushing Bitcoin, so naturally I bet him in Bitcoins. The trouble he's having is it's almost impossible to get bitcoins to pay me with! This is a real big problem for the community, since we're all about micro-payments. I'm having trouble avoiding a $15 - $50 bank or Wester Union or Moneygram fee to do a transfer in some reasonable time. Somebody must know a way?

I'm just wondering what the best way to go is? I sent $200 to a very reputable dealer in cash last month and it's supposedly lost in the mail. (I'm not mentioning any names since I keep hoping it will turn up.) So I can't recommend a cash based dealer to the guy.

I was thinking there must be a lower risk way. Like buying a re-loadable visa card with cash, then using that on AlertPay or some other source to buy Liberty Reserve on exchangezone.com. Then using LR to buy BTC on mtgox? That should be less risky than sending cash in the mail. Once you get Liberty Reserve then it's easy to get BTC. It's getting away from the refundable nature of the banking system thats the hard part.

TL:DR:How does he go about getting $10 USD turned into bitcoins without spending $15 on transfer fees? Or is this just impossible?

Yeah, it sucks to lose $200 to the mail system (or the exchanger.) This was just a small test to check the integrity of the exchange before I sent them some real cash. I'm glad I got burned on a smaller amount. Now I see why Western Union can afford to charge people $20 to send cash somewhere. I really really wish I would've paid them.

Anyway, thanks for the help guys. CoinPal looks like exactly what I was looking for.

Yeah, it sucks to lose $200 to the mail system (or the exchanger.) This was just a small test to check the integrity of the exchange before I sent them some real cash. I'm glad I got burned on a smaller amount. Now I see why Western Union can afford to charge people $20 to send cash somewhere. I really really wish I would've paid them.

Anyway, thanks for the help guys. CoinPal looks like exactly what I was looking for.

Now to just find a way to transfer larger amounts safely...

well, that's why it pays to use delivery confirmation on mail that's worth > $100. things are much less likely to get lost that way, for only a few bucks more.

as for larger amounts... mtgox takes bank wire and ach transfers in for larger chunks of usd, so that's probably your best bet.

The only reliable way(if you are paying cash) is to do a bsnk transfer to mtgox (or similar) for amounts that are not too small, maybe 200-300. There is not really any other reliable method than using a bank transfer.

If you're in the U.S., you can purchase MoneyPark cards for cash at Walgreens, CVS, etc. They are used to refill Green Dot prepaid credit cards, but can also be deposited into PayPal. All that's needed is to encrypt the code from the card and send it to the Bitcoin seller, and they can deposit it into their PayPal account, no reversing charge worries. The only catch is that they will have to provide some info (social security#, etc) to Green Dot in order to do more than $250/year or so.

I was hoping to be able to use paypal or a debit card in the US for reasonable fees, but the couple places LR suggested on its page seemed pricey for like $200. I noticed that the random Indian-ran convenience store near me has a sign for free money orders, so maybe I will see how they are for other things like this, or maybe it is better to just go through the hassle of bank wires.

The reviews on the cheapest places at that BSrates for wire transfers doesn't seem good.

I was hoping to be able to use paypal or a debit card in the US for reasonable fees, but the couple places LR suggested on its page seemed pricey for like $200. I noticed that the random Indian-ran convenience store near me has a sign for free money orders, so maybe I will see how they are for other things like this, or maybe it is better to just go through the hassle of bank wires.

The reviews on the cheapest places at that BSrates for wire transfers doesn't seem good.

I guess I looked away initially because of the $100 limit and 7 day delay. Maybe money order direct to bitcoin will work although I wanted to watch price fluctuations on Mtgox. I've known about bitcoin for a while but finally just started taking a look again about a month ago when the rate was still under .30

3% isn't bad at all. Maybe I will send you payment tomorrow if I don't find a way to get it faster.

edit: guess I am dumb and missed that check/money order also takes 7 days to clear.

I think the best ( and more simple ) way to get bitcoins is to use mtgox , there are people selling MTG$ on #bitcoin-otc . You can buy the MTG$ with paypal or moneybookers, and then you can use your MTG$ to buy bitcoins at the market price.

If you intend to acquire a larger number of Bitcoin, you can send a wire to the administrator of MtGox and they will exchange that for site credit which will allow you to trade Bitcoin easily. This is the avenue I am currently pursuing.

You can buy 10wmz - 150wmz through buywmz.com with a credit card then trade it for LR on exchangezone at 1:1 rate, then use that to fund your Mt Gox account. Or you can fill your own liqpay acount for free for mini exchanges, then trade it with all the Russian exchangers that do liqpay to LR.

As for mailing cash make sure you use tracking, employees will be hesitant to steal something that can be traced to see who handled it. Weed vendors who accept cash by mail have their mail stolen all the time once somebody finds out there's money in there. UPS accepts ID for everything, but would be preferable to use them or DHL/Fedex instead of USPS or Canada Post if you're sending $200+